Instructions

1. Know how to interpret the colors on a banana's peel to determine how ripe it is. A banana that is even slightly green is not technically ripe. They are more firm and less sweet than those with brown spots on the peel. A yellow banana is ripe. A banana that is all brown is still good for eating, but a banana that has black spots is bruised.

2. Choose only the bananas that are a little less ripe than you like to eat them. You can also choose bananas at various stages of the ripening process if you plan to eat a banana a day for the next few days and would like them each to be perfectly ripe.

3. Slow down the ripening process by putting bananas in the fridge or freezer. The peel will turn dark brown, but the fruit inside will remain juts as ripe as the day you put it in the fridge.

4. Speed up the ripening process by placing any unripe bananas in a paper sack along with a banana with a brown peel. The ripe banana will give off ethylene gas that will ripen the other bananas. The same process isn't as effective if all the bananas are just sitting in a bowl together because the ethylene gas escapes into the air rather than being trapped in a paper sack.